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| L&T files patents in China MUMBAI, Apr 29: After making inroads into China, which is strong in manufacturing, heavy engineering major Larson & Toubro (L&T) has started filing patents in the foreign country, a top company ......more BoB plans to beef up branch network in south, central regions MUMBAI, Apr 29: Leading public sector lender, Bank of Baroda (BoB), today said that it planned to enhance its branch network in the south where it was presently .....more Japanese Toray Group make a silent entry into India MUMBAI, Apr 29: USD 12.4 billion Toray Group of Japan made a silent entry into the lucrative ......more Jindal Stainless outfit to expand retail business KOLKATA, Apr 29: Jindal Stainless Limited subsidiary Austenitic Creations Private Limited has chalked out plans to expand its chain of retail stores in the next three years, according to a company official.Sugato Bose, CEO of Austenitic Creations, .....more |
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SEBI mulls price band for debut
trading after IPOs NEW DELHI, Apr 29: After banning several brokers from trading in shares on their debut on the bourses, market regulator SEBI plans to fix a first-day price band ......more FM, SEBI differ on applicability of RTI on stock exchanges NEW DELHI, Apr 29: Market regulator SEBI and Finance Ministry have come up with conflicting opinions over the applicability of Right to Information ....more Investigating or ignoring complaints is SEBI's choice: HC NEW DELHI, Apr 29: The Calcutta High Court has held that market regulator SEBI has the discretion to decide whether or not to ...more Su-Kam expects Rs 1,000 cr revenue on higher inverter sales NEW DELHI, Apr 29: With the country facing massive electricity shortages, power back-up products manufacturer Su-Kam is laughing all the way to the ........more |
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MUMBAI, Apr 29: After making inroads into China, which is strong in manufacturing, heavy engineering major Larson & Toubro (L&T) has started filing patents in the foreign country, a top company official said. It has filed five patents for air circuit breakers (switchgear products) and three for protection relays, L&T board member R N Mukhija told PTI. Besides these, L&T has filed 42 patents for moulded case circuit breakers. On the domestic front, L&T filed 80 patents in the financial year 2006-07. Of the 80, 52 patents were filed by the Powai campus and the rest by Mysore campus. With the filing of 80 patents, L&T takes its total tally to a whopping 247 patents, Mukhija said. "We started design and development activities in 1960s and have evolved to the stage of creating and protecting intellectual property," he said. "Anticipating customers' needs and offering innovative products with a strong support from R&D has always been our focus area. Through the creation of intellectual property, we would continue to add value for our shareholders," the company board member said. (PTI) |
BoB plans to beef up branch network in south, central regions MUMBAI, Apr 29: Leading public sector lender, Bank of Baroda (BoB), today said that it planned to enhance its branch network in the south where it was presently thinly represented. "We plan to open 70 branches this year and of this a majority will be in the south, where we want to scale up our presence. We will also be opening more branches in the central region," the bank's Chairman and Managing Director, A K Khandelwal, told reporters here. BoB's domestic branch strength presently stands at 2,732 but the south and central regions' representation in it is a mere 10.18 per cent and 3.30 per cent respectively. The bank is very strong in the western and northern regions with a nearly 48 per cent representation in the former and a 28 per cent presence in the latter. The bank, which posted a net profit of 1,026.47-crore in FY 07 as against Rs 826.97-crore a year-ago, expects to record a better financial performance with a greater geographical spread of its branches. BoB, which fared very well in its international business, plans to drive growth here aggressively this fiscal. In FY 07, its international business contributed 19.9 per cent and 33 per cent to its total business and net profit, respectively. The bank has zero net NPAs in its international operations. Khandelwal said that the bank has drawn up an ambitious expansion plan involving opening offices in Trinidad & Tobago, Canada, New Zealand, Isle of Man, Australia, the GCC countries, Ghana and Mozambique. (PTI) |
Japanese Toray Group make a silent entry into India MUMBAI, Apr 29: USD 12.4 billion Toray Group of Japan made a silent entry into the lucrative Indian market through its 'Torayvino' water purifiers. Far away from the media glare, the Group tied-up last week in Mumbai with Kolkata-based A K Exports and Imports to distribute its products in India. "India does not concern much about water purification and there is no such compact product like ours available in the country. This gives us enough chance to make a good business in India," Daisuke Satou, Manager, Torayvino Export Section, told PTI. Without using electricity, 'Torayvino' water purifiers employ dual filtration system. These purifiers retain the natural minerals essential for health, such as calcium and magnesium in the tap water and use hollow fibre filter that traps microscopic impurities, rust, coliform bacilli, bacteria and protozoa. Satou said that the company manufactures ten million prufiers each year and enjoys the majority market share in Japan. It also sells its products in Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Taiwan and to a small extent to the US. "In spite of all this, turnover from the purifier segment does not contribute even a one per cent to our Group's total sales," Satou said. "India is a very important market for us. We were thinking of entering into the market for long. We sense high potential in India," he said, but added that the company had no plans to set up any manufacturing plant in India immediately. "The technology we use in such purifiers are really of very high-end. We have to gauge the market potential before we take a decision," Satou said. (PTI) |
Jindal Stainless outfit to expand retail business KOLKATA, Apr 29: Jindal Stainless Limited subsidiary Austenitic Creations Private Limited has chalked out plans to expand its chain of retail stores in the next three years, according to a company official. Sugato Bose, CEO of Austenitic Creations, said that the company had ventured out in retailing of designer steelware household items years back. He said that the company would set up 25 more Destination Stores across the country which would house lifestyle steelware products under the brand `artd'inox'. Austenitic has already opened eight such stores across the country including three in Delhi and two in Mumbai, besides at Bangalore, Chandigarh, and Coimbatore. The company opened its first exclusive outlet in the metropolis on Saturday. Bose said that the outlets were owned and operated by the company. He said that each outlet involved an investment of Rs 40 lakh to Rs 50 lakh. (PTI) |
SEBI mulls price band for debut trading after IPOs NEW DELHI, Apr 29: After banning several brokers from trading in shares on their debut on the bourses, market regulator SEBI plans to fix a first-day price band for stocks listing after initial public offers to check any irregular movements in the scrips. "It would be a higher filter, not a normal filter, to enable price discovery... We believe on day one, we need price filter," SEBI Chairman M Damodaran told PTI here. However, it should not affect the effective price discovery mechanism, he added. SEBI is collecting evidence of excessive price variation on the first day of trading, based on which it will decide whether to impose such filters on new listings. Earlier this month, SEBI had issued a draft guideline inviting public comments on imposition of circuit filters on the first day of re-listing of shares. "Until now there has not been artificial barriers, no filters, no circuit breakers at this level because we said let market discover the price," Damodaran said about the price movements in newly-listed shares. The regulator last week banned seven brokerages from debut trading in newly-listed shares for their alleged role in huge price movements recorded in stocks like Cambridge Technology, Mindtree and Pyramid Saimira Theatre on their first day of trading. Some of these stocks witnessed unprecedented jump in their share prices immediately after the listing. (PTI) |
Investigating or ignoring complaints is SEBI's choice: HC NEW DELHI, Apr 29: The Calcutta High Court has held that market regulator SEBI has the discretion to decide whether or not to investigate complaints filed before it. "If a representation or objection is made in pursuance of a statutory provision, the SEBI would be bound to consider it. "But upon the receipt of a complaint containing a prayer to investigate, which is not made in exercise of any right conferred by the statute, it would be entirely the discretion of SEBI whether to investigate or not," Justice Dipankar Datta said in a recent judgement posted on SEBI's website. The court said the rules framed under the SEBI Act and guidelines do not obligate the regulator to consider any and every complaint that might be lodged with it. The court made the observation while dismissing the petition of Gujarat NRE Coke Limited, seeking a direction to SEBI to restrain Mumbai-based Gremach Infrastructure Equipments and Projects Ltd from having access to the capital market. "No duty is cast either upon the Head Office of SEBI or its Regional Office to investigate into the complaint lodged by the petitioner and they have no cause of action to move the present petition which is liable to fail," the Bench said. (PTI) |
FM, SEBI differ on applicability of RTI on stock exchanges NEW DELHI, Apr 29: Market regulator SEBI and Finance Ministry have come up with conflicting opinions over the applicability of Right to Information (RTI) Act on stock exchanges. The view expressed by Securities and Exchange Board of India before the full bench of Central Information Commission (CIC) that bourses are "public authorities" is contrary to the opinion of Department of Economic Affairs (DEA). The DEA has been maintaining that stock exchanges are not "public authorities" as defined in the RTI Act because they are regulated by SEBI and not the government. This has created a peculiar situation for CIC, headed by Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, which is hearing RTI appeals to decide whether stock exchanges can be brought within the purview of the legislation. The appeals came before CIC after Bombay Stock Exchange, National Stock Exchange and Jaipur Stock Exchange turned down the plea of brokers and investors seeking information about alleged market fraud that caused them losses as well as details about a broker who allegedly played foul. The RTI applications were filed by an investor K Lall, Rajkumari Agrawal and Yogesh Mehta (ex-member broker), who suffered losses in the market. NSE opposed the application maitaining that it cannot be treated as a "public authority" as the government did not have any control over its affairs. The bourse, through its counsel, has sought ten days for making detailed submission before CIC. (PTI) |
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Su-Kam expects Rs 1,000 cr revenue on higher inverter sales NEW DELHI, Apr 29: With the country facing massive electricity shortages, power back-up products manufacturer Su-Kam is laughing all the way to the bank as it expects its sales to more than double this fiscal to Rs 1,000 crore. "The company posted around Rs 450 crore revenues in 2006-07 and this year we are expecting to earn around Rs 1,000 crores," Su-Kam Power Systems Ltd chief executive officer Kunwer Sachdev said here. He said Su-Kam, which makes a range of products such as inverters, UPS (uninterrupted power supply) and batteries, was targeting to sell 15 lakh inverters this year as compared to around eight lakhs last year. "Our sales have generally been in cities and towns but this fiscal's agenda is to tap the villages, which we would begin at the Taluka level," he said. The company was targeting to penetrate seven lakh villages during this fiscal for selling its small inverters. Sachdev said the company conducts 35-40 per cent of its inverters business during the summer months of April, May, June and July. It was expecting to earn around Rs 250 crore from the first three months, he said, adding in 2006-07 Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana recorded the highest sales. The company has opened a new plant at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh for manufacturing batteries at a cost of Rs 80 crore. The facility would begin operations by June and make around 20 lakh units of batteries. Sachdev said the inverter industry was around Rs 2,000 crore and Su-Kam had a market share of around 50 per cent. (PTI) |
COAI spites TRAI for poor quality of services... NEW DELHI, Apr 29: Private cellular operators, nursing a grudge against regulator TRAI for making them pay for interconnection with BSNL, gave vent to their feelings by blaming the authority for poor quality of mobile services. "Network congestion is due to lack of Points of Interconnection (point where different networks meet) provided by BSNL... We have no option and the fault is with BSNL," the Cellular Operators Association of India submitted before tribunal TDSAT, which is hearing a matter on call congestion. COAI further blamed TRAI for formulating wrong policies on the interconnection front, saying the regulator had put the onus on private operators to get interconnection with BSNL and also bear the entire cost of the exercise. They demanded that BSNL also share the cost of interconnection. The operators sought to highlight contradictory stands taken by TRAI, saying the regulator at one time attributed the poor quality to BSNL's failure to provide interconnection and on the other blamed private operators for lack of efforts to get timely access to BSNL network. The COAI, in a rejoinder filed through advocate Naveen Chawla to BSNL's reply on the matter, stated that at time of framing of rules, the telecom PSU was only a fixed line operator. BSNL, which subsequently launched Cellone, started routing all the outgoing and incoming calls traffic through the ports installed by them. Hence, the state-run company must share cost of interconnection, COAI argued. (PTI) |
Parliamentary panel raps Govt over disinvestment issue.. NEW DELHI, Apr 29: A Parliamentary panel has expressed concern over Government's decision to sell stake in three power companies despite its announced stance of keeping all proposals and decision relating to disinvestment on hold. "In spite of the assurance given and reiteration of the Committee's recommendation for bringing out a policy document spelling out the disinvestment policy approach, goals and objectives, the government has been unable to come with the same till date," the Standing Committee on Finance said in a report tabled in Parliament recently. Expressing "anguish", it said despite the decision to keep on hold all proposals relating to divestment, the government on February 8 proposed to back the "Offer of Sale" of 10 per cent, 5 per cent and 5 per cent of shareholding by the Rural Electrification Corporation, Power Grid Corp and National Hydroelectric Power Corporation respectively. The panel wanted a clear policy on disinvestment. It was of immense national importance in terms of utilising proceeds for funding social welfare projects and capital investment requirement of profitable PSUs was not being enunciated by the Government, the report said. It also said, though a decision was taken on July 6, 2006 to keep all disinvestment decisions on hold, the government is unable to indicate any time frame for completing the review. The committee, headed by former union minister Ananth Kumar, asked the Government to avoid the apparent ambiguous stance on disinvestment of PSUs and refrain from restoring to adhocism in its policy approach. The Government should come out with a comprehensive policy document in this regard, it said. (PTI) Govt failed to meet 10th Plan infra targets: Par Committee... NEW DELHI, Apr 29: A Parliamentary committee has pulled up the Government for failing to meet the 10th plan target for key infrastructure sectors such as roads, coal, steel, shipping and ports and observed that as many as 257 projects had time-overruns of up to 13 years. On the implementation of Central projects, the Standing Committee on Finance said that out of 837 projects, involving a cost of Rs 3.7 lakh crore and monitored by the Infrastructure Monitoring Division (IMD) of the government, as many as 233 projects experienced cost escalation to the tune of 65 per cent as compared to the original sanctioned estimates. Of these, 257 projects had time-overruns ranging up to more than 13 years, the committee said in its report tabled in Parliament. The report of the committee, chaired by Ananth Kumar, has asked the government to identify the factors responsible for these delays and cost escalation and initiate corrective actions, to prevent such a happening, "which does not augur well for the economy". It also asked the Government to reveal within one month what action was taken against those held to responsible for lapses that contributed to the cost escalation of projects as reported by the Standing Committee on Project Monitoring of the Ministries concerned, the report said. Against a target to build 543 kilometres of highways in the Tenth Five Year Plan, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) could undertake only 321 km only, the report said. (PTI) |
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BHEL overburdened, push NTPC foray in manufacturing: Par panel...... NEW DELHI, Apr 29: Blaming an "overburdened" BHEL for the failure to meet 10th plan capacity addition targets in the power sector, a parliamentary panel has asked Power Ministry to expedite state-run generation giant NTPC Ltd's foray into the equipment manufacturing business. "About 53 per cent of capacity addition target (of 10th plan) has slipped to 11th plan. Out of this, major slippage has been due to delay in supercritical technology and supply of equipment by BHEL," the Standing Committee on Energy said in its report for 2006-07 tabled in Parliament. "Since BHEL is the sole supplier of equipment, it seemed to be overburdened with work," it said, adding the government should select other suppliers as well through the competitive bidding route to ensure that 11th plan targets were met. In 10th Plan, the Centre, states and private firms added around 21,180 MW of capacity compared to the target of around 41,110 MW. During 2007-12, the power ministry has set a target of adding 78,000 MW of fresh generation capacity. The Committee, headed by Gurudas Kamat, also asked the government to "vigorously" pursue the proposal to enhance equipment manufacturing capacity under the flagship of NTPC. Besides, NTPC's proposal to look at a possibility of entering into on-going equipment manufacturing business should also be pursued simultaneously, it said. The panel also said Power Ministry should secure clearances beforehand so that higher capacity power projects were not delayed. It should make an effort to acquire supercritical alternate technologies available worldwide for setting up power plants as a number of NTPC projects were delayed because such technology was not available. (PTI) |
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